Vinyl LP, Compact Disc (CD)
A cursory search for “spike fields” on Google returns fascinating results. By reading an article or three, a person can learn about long-term nuclear waste warning messages, nuclear semiotics, even prehistoric-looking government repositories full of art projects—ominous, massive granite constructions designed to create a dialogue between the past and the future.
That dialogue is present on the 12 tracks that comprise Spike Fields, the second album from Oakland-based artist Maria BC. Fresh encounters and old recollections converse with one another in delicate vocal arrangements, sawlike electronic textures, sparse guitars, and a detuned baby Steinway piano. That beauty and vulnerability doesn’t come without pain: the lyrics explore aching memories, struggle, and grief. Crystalline synths and a rising, triumphant chorus introduce the mesmerizing “Watcher,” where obscured lyrics are woven into a trio of vocal harmonies. On “Haruspex,” Maria BC’s voice emerges alone, accompanied by electric guitar and percussion that punctuates unsettled questions (“Is my body right?”). The artist’s voice is doubled on “Return to Sender,” where menacing waves of synth form a dramatic backdrop for lyrics that detail a failed attempt at connection. With gracious defeat, the speaker concedes: “I’ll just let my answers get sent back.” The first portion of Spike Fields is drawn from a palette of thoughts and questions, the music wandering in and out: part tangible dreamy melodies, part barren electronic landscape.
The sense of desolation becomes more palpable, but no less exquisite, as the album goes on. On “Daydrinker,” a sustained vocalization—somber at first, then progressively more angelic—blends with reversed guitar, resulting in a dark, deep well of sound. “Still” delivers a message of finality (“Nothing is wrong/ We deserve what we deserve”) above an echoing piano that grows in volume until it becomes the centerpiece of the song. “Lacuna” (in Latin, “pit” or “gap”) is filled with chimes, giddy, glitchy effects, and throbbing vocals, a hiatus from the album’s emotional barrenness. That reprieve ends with “Mercury,” a stormy and discordant return to earlier turmoil. Throughout, Maria BC’s voice is elastic: allowing them to achieve both somber, spectral tones and celestial, victorious highs. A beautifully crafted, bracingly candid meditation on memory and personal experience, Spike Fields is arresting, auspicious, and fully-formed.
